IoT provider Comodule has released a suite of new digital security features for e-bikes in case of theft.
A Share My Bike feature allows riders to share digital access to the same bike to family, friends and colleagues via a personalised link without the need for physical keys. This could help families for instance who share the same cargo bike to add peace of mind of each other’s location, or it could help businesses to share their micro fleets between different users.
If a Comodule-connected bike is moved while locked, all users receive immediate push notifications on their phones, prompting them to check for suspicious activity. Users can also share the bike’s live location with non-users via a live tracking link, allowing fast community engagement to check if a bike is safe.
If a bike is stolen, a new Report Theft feature in the app allows users to send a theft report with the bike’s live location to FRIS, a professional recovery partner of Comodules. FRIS can send out a recovery squad to track the bike down and bring it back to the owner in 48 hours.
The final new feature is a Bike Passport to serve as a secure identity for the bike. This includes details like the brand, model, frame number and IoT information, providing ownership if stolen.
“The features collectively represent a significant leap in e-bike security after theft,” CEO Teet Praks told Zag Daily.
“A topic which has gotten too little attention so far – reaction time is the most important factor to increase the likelihood of bike recovery when it gets stolen. In a regular theft scenario, the bike owners struggle to get authorities to deal with their case, and even if there is a tracker installed, it takes a lot of time and effort to actually get someone to the bike and try to recover it.”
Teet says that the new features will eliminate three main blockers.
“A person does not need to go alone to hunt down the thief, they can gather the whole community or use professionals to recover the bike; the process of reporting theft is made much faster than the manual process today, again speeding up the process for faster assistance; Digital Bike passport enables to prove the ownership of the bike and recover it when it has been found, again something manual that is now made seamless and digital.”
